NPR: Polar Chengdu

Polar Chengdu

“Why bring a threatened species to a place where so many are endangered already?”

Chengdu

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Yesterday, we were driving south out of Chengdu, looking at signs of this city's explosive growth. Gleaming high-priced high-rises to house the newly rich. A dramatic high-tech center: a football-shaped glass building flanked by two curved orange towers. Stunning new municipal government buildings that are a far cry from grim, old-style socialist architecture. These are angular structures, encased in decorative metal webs.

And then, I saw something that really made me blink: a long turquoise sign surrounding a site still under development, with photos of shaggy polar bears, and the words "Chengdu Polar Ocean World." Chengdu? Polar? Ocean?

I did a quick Google search, and it's true. By next May, Chengdu is slated to boast a polar ocean themed resort -- a $171 million dollar investment -- that will be home to polar bears, penguins, beluga whales, and more. It will be a kind of polar sister to a Polar Ocean World that's drawing crowds in Qingdao, in eastern China.

Hands-on experience with whale in China.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf holding a panda at the Chengdu center in 2006. I bet he didn't have to pay.

ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images

Now, I know that there are polar bears swimming around in unlikely places -- the Central Park Zoo, for example. But I've spent the last week hearing about devastating environmental destruction in China, about constant loss of habitat, about a threatened giant panda population in the wild. Why bring another threatened species to a place where there are so many endangered species already?

But there's money to be made. If you pay $150 at the panda base here in Chengdu, you can hold a baby panda. The staff has qualms about whether this is wise, but it's a huge money-maker, and they rely on the funds.

Threatened polar bears -- threatened panda bears -- I guess they're all fair game in the new China.

--Melissa Block

2:48 PM ET | 04-10-2008 | permalink

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I went to the safari park in Shenzhen several years ago. You could take pictures with any animals there, but you had to pay for it. I felt sorry for those animals; we'd disturbed their wild life, toI satisfy our curiosity about other creatures who share the planet with us.

Sent by Song Qiuying | 1:02 AM ET | 04-11-2008

To Song Qiuying:

If we go by that logic, we probably should tear down all the zoos and let the animals there all go loose. Oh yes, all the highways should go too, as they invitably intrude on animals. We could go on, on and on.

I suppose I am just a bit tired of people picking on everything China does do - or does not do - and then feeling smug and good about themselves. Safaris in a city like Shenzhen or Polar Ocean in Chengdu do sound silly to me, but greater destruction to the environment is ongoing every minute all over the world, particularly in the developed world, the only difference being that they are packaged much more nicely and cleverly.

I'm not sure why you went to the Safari in the first place. Were you not there to satisfy your curiosity?

Sent by James Ouyang | 7:05 PM ET | 04-11-2008

If polar bears can swim in the Central Park Zoo, why can not they swim in a resort in Chengdu?

Despite the fact that someone's making money from these animals, it is very likely that the polar bears in Chengdu will promote the local residents' understanding of and sympathy towards wild animals and promote social consensus to protect wild animals and the environment in general.

I don't believe that depriving people's natural curiosity towards animals will do any good to the environment.

Sent by lakeaustin | 12:44 AM ET | 04-16-2008

Just for the record the Chengdu Zoo already has polar bears. The sad thing about the Chengdu Zoo and also the Wildlife Park is that, from what I can see, the animals are not taken care of properly and the guests of these parks feed the animals rubbish. I hope that this doesn't happen at Polar Ocean World, but I think they will have their hands full trying to change a culture.

Sent by Kim Dallas | 3:09 AM ET | 04-22-2008

Ha! ha!

Here's a link to the Chengdu Polar Ocean World:

http://picasaweb.google.com/wam8314/cdvitF and the municipalgovernment:http://picasaweb.google.com/wam8314/MunicipalGovernment

Sent by George Wang | 2:42 AM ET | 04-29-2008

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About 'Chengdu Diary'

We first launched this blog in the spring of 2008, when a team from NPR's All Things Considered headed to Chengdu, China, the capital of Sichuan Province, to prepare for a week of special programming on China. On May 12, 2008, the staff found themselves in the middle of an unexpected story when a massive earthquake struck southwestern China.

The 2008 entries on this blog offer a day-by-day chronicle of the team's experiences before and after the quake. The 2009 entries document a return visit to Chengdu and to the parts of Sichuan Province most affected by the disaster.

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